Disinfection and sterilization are particularly important in the field of healthcare to ensure that infectious pathogens are not transmitted to patients via medical devices or the environment in which patients are treated. While medical instruments may be placed in autoclaves or other sterilization chambers for sterilization, sterilization of the atmosphere and surfaces within a patient or operating room can be more difficult and labor intensive to perform properly. Moreover, there is evidence to show that a manual “spray and wipe”, in addition to being labor and time intensive, is not always a suitably effective process for disinfection. More particularly, spray and wipe allows for human error (missing areas where pathogens reside), and may also allow for cross-contamination (spreading of germs).
While spray and wipe processes remain an important component of a disinfection strategy for certain applications, more contemporary methods such as fogging for whole room disinfection may be desirable to help ensure that all surfaces, whether visible or not, are reached for effective pathogen elimination.